Originally Posted by MsEithne
Originally Posted by BizzieLizzie
A friend asked if I would make her 4 year old a quilt and I gladly said I would. She asked that I used some Chinese silk which used to be her grandmother's wedding dress. Embroidered and stitched by hand by her grandmother 100 years, may be more, ago.
There isn't enough for a whole quilt and I will need to add fabric to it. My worry is that the Silk will not hold up to wear and tear. I noticed that there is feed sack on the back of the 'collar' pieces, stabilising the embroidery.
There are little areas where there is weakness in the embroidered tapes already, mainly along the edges. There is wear and tear, water marks and also little black spots. What do you think? Is there any way to try and secure the fabric pieces with new silk or cotton?
I am open to suggestions. My friend would really like to have these fabrics on her son's quilt and I would like to try and do a good job of it.
The other question is weather machine sewing will damage the fabrics? I would really welcome all help with this one!
What is the feed sack backing on the collar pieces like? If it is decorative, then they were probably printed after 1925, which is a clue to the age of the whole. If the feed sack pieces are decorative, it's possible the silk is actually rayon (first marketed as "artificial silk" and hugely popular).
Figuring out whether the fabric is rayon or silk will guide your choice of stabilisers. Rayon prefers a slightly alkaline environment and silk does best with a slightly acid environment. So if the wedding dress is rayon, then I'd choose either cotton or rayon as a stabiliser; if it is silk, I'd go with silk (and silk thread). In either case, I would not suggest a fusible stabiliser, the heat required could change the colour of the fabric or hasten deterioration.
Will the quilt hold up on a small child's bed? Depends on the child. I'd be hesitant to try it and would perhaps suggest a wallhanging as being subject to much less wear. Or a much larger quilt that would showcase the wedding gown pieces and be appropriate in size for an adult's bed (which would mean storing the quilt until her son was old enough to appreciate it and treat it carefully).
And yes, sewing by machine may just eat up the fabric or parts of the fabric. Stabilising with a sew-in stabliser (NOT FUSIBLE) or plain rayon or silk might help but personally, I'd be hesitant to try it. It sounds like you really don't have any excess fabric for testing.
My last suggestion is to ask your friend if you can take this wedding dress to a textile appraiser, in order to find out the value, what this is actually made of and get suggestions for treating the stains and black marks. Again, there is so little fabric there, it would be a shame to ruin any of it via experimentation.
It's a gorgeous piece!
Thank you for your message. I described the backing textiles on the collar like bits as feed sack because that is what I thought it was. You probably already know this; in China they use sacks for packing their dry produce - tea, flour etc. They are quite far back in parts of China and there are still lots of villages that still do things the 'old' way.
My friend did confirm that it is definitely chinese silk from mainland China, (she is from China herself) that was handed down the generations , that is, from her great, great grandmother to great grandmother to grandmother to mother and now to her. What part of the fabric she received is a question mark because I have 2 skirt pieces and the 'collar' pieces. It is not Japanese.
Thank you for the information and the time you have taken to write your message. It is much appreciated.